


The Widow's Bite

by MadameEngineer



Series: The Widow's Bite [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel 616, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-07
Updated: 2015-08-11
Packaged: 2018-04-13 12:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4522110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameEngineer/pseuds/MadameEngineer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Black Widow is drawn back into the world of espionage and assassination as her past comes back to haunt her. As her trust with her former allies is shaken, she finds herself wounded and on the run with only a few of her former friends to rely on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Extreme Hobby

It was the perfect day. The sky was a sparkling blue without even a wisp of cloud, and the warm summer air was pleasant without being too cool. And a flag twenty stories below me indicated that there was no breeze whatsoever. A perfect day, for my purposes anyway.

Down below, in an outdoor coffee shop about half a mile from my perch sat three conspicuous looking gentlemen all in classy suits and all with shifty eyes. Almost as if they were nervous someone was watching them.

Those gentlemen sipping on their overpriced latte’s were Hydra. Over the last few years, Hydra’s power had gone up and down like the stocks with no less than four total organizational collapses and by my tally over thirty leading members had already been taken out. But they stuck with their gimmick. Cut off one head and all that. 

And so I sat in my perch, waiting and observing. My Intel said that there would be four of them, and I was content to let him join the party before I did my part it cutting off those heads. 

“Subject 309 didn’t offer us much insight. It expired before we had the chance to really get anywhere in interrogation.” Said the larger one sitting left of the table. Files named him as Frederic Jones, but that was only the first of dozens of pseudonyms. Once I’d intercepted their communiqué, I had scouted out their meet and placed a bug. They didn’t even sweep for any, and to be honest that offended me a little.

“Well perhaps you should make some alterations to your interrogation tactics.” Spat the man on the right. “This isn’t the first time you’ve become overzealous. What about the rest of the subjects?”

“They’re stable and confined. And I wouldn’t worry about it. This batch seems hardier than the last. A few may even prove useful with the right incentives.”

That incentive was mind control, and those subjects were inhuman. After the raid on the Iliad a few months back, more and more inhumans had appeared all across the world. The avengers, the shadow of shield and hydra all took interest of course and it has become a mad scramble for control and study ever since. 

At the moment, I wasn’t a part of any three of those organizations. Taking some time off from the Avengers to clear my head, and go back to my roots as it were. This was nothing more than a job, one that would benefit Inhuman and Avenger alike. For me, it would give a boost to my web as it was very nearly dry at the moment.

It had been the first job Isaiah and I had agreed on with no argument. The source was anonymous of course, and the list of people who wished to see Hydra fall was a long one. 

The three continue to chat about world domination and the like, and finally another suited figure shows up. Four men at a table all in full suits in the middle of summer. They couldn’t be more conspicuous if they tried. That or I was horribly mistaken and this was some reservoir dogs fan meeting.

“Sorry I’m late. Did I miss anything?” asked the latecomer.

“We were just discussing how Jones needs to pull his goddamned punches.” Said the third man.

Jones crossed his arms in annoyance, and I couldn’t help but smirk. When the other Hydra operatives call you an asshole, you know you have problems.

The merry band all assembled, I got to work opening the silver case at my side. I only casually listen to the conversation as I withdraw piece after piece of the rifle inside. It had been a long time since I’d had to bust him out. Most operations in shield wanted targets alive but not this time. The client wanted them dead, and he wanted it public as a deterrent. Make sure that the threat of death was not completely gone from Hydra’s minds.

Public assassination. That took me back, and not in a good way. But what difference was there in shooting Nazi death cult members in the open or snuffing them out quietly in their own homes? The results were the same and results were all that mattered.

“Any news of our Austrian branch?” asked the latecomer. The assembly shook their heads.

“No, and we’ve been unable to get anyone out there as well. We must operate on the assumption that it was compromised.”

It was. I had been there and assisted with that particular raid. We had released a half dozen detainees that day and we found many more that weren’t so lucky. 

They continue the conversation, and I wait leaning the rifle against the wall just in case any of them dropped any intelligence I could leak to Cap. But a quarter of an hour passes, and the most valuable thing I learn is that four suited men at a table attracted surprisingly few glances from bystanders.

I situate the rifle on the window’s ledge as the crew start to wind down. They discuss their next meeting palace which they will never go to and their research they would never finish.

They each begin to lean towards each other in familial looking hugs. Over the mic I can hear the hushed whispers. 

“Hail Hydra.” “Hail Hydra.” “Hail Hydra.”

“Hail hydra.” I repeat, before squeezing the trigger. The first two go down with the same bullet. The third is dropped before he even understands what was happening. And the fourth… the fourth was looking right at me. He was the latecomer, and this eye contact was enough to stay my trigger finger.

He’s scared, but he doesn’t look concerned for his former comrades. He begins reaching into his pocket and through the scope I see that he withdraws a badge. Through the scope I can read it easily enough. SHIELD. I pull back from the scope, and eject the magazine from the rifle. In terms of paperwork, I had just ruined somebody’s day.

\---

After several hours of shield and avenger interrogation, I am released. When I arrive back home to my building, I find Clint hanging out by my door. “You could just call you know.” I offer, inserting the key into the lock.

“I was in the neighborhood.” He replies. It was amazing how many times I’ve heard that line in my life in the last few years. Can’t throw a rock without hitting some kind of enhanced who happens to be around.

I open the door and flick on the lights. No sooner have I taken my first step inside than Liho is winding his way around my legs softly purring. I’d only been gone a few days, were all cats so clingy?

Clint steps in behind me and Liho gives him a hesitant look. “It’s okay, he’s friendly.” I say, setting the silver case off to the side and moving to the fridge for a drink. “Want anything?” I ask.

“I’ll take a beer if you got one.” I had several just for such occasions. Had his favorite brand too. I toss it to him and he cracks it open, taking a swig. “Long day?”

I grab a water bottle and close the fridge, then shoot him a look. “Rogers already gave me a speech, you don’t need to too, no matter whether he asked you or not.”

He nods. “Cool, yeah I figured.” I note that he doesn’t deny that Cap asked him. He moves to a chair by the window and I take a seat on the couch. “You know he’s just looking out for all of us.”

“That’s the sort of thing that can get him into trouble.” I reply. “There are things he doesn’t need to know.” Ever since I had left the team, I had made it clear that if they ever needed help I’d be ready. I had assumed that implied a certain level of distance between our operations. Apparently not.

“Can you blame him?” asks Clint. Of course I couldn’t I think. Clint and I were huge liabilities now that we’d left. Still, the whole babysitting thing was getting very old. 

“That’s not the point. We’re spies. This is the kind of risk we take. That SHIELD agent knew what he was signed up for, we all do.” There was also the fact that I hadn’t shot him, though it probably wouldn’t help to point that out.

Clint put his hands up in defense. “I’m not saying Rogers is right. It’s just a different world now.”

“I’m not running all of my jobs through the Avengers.” I laugh.

This gets a chuckle from him as he takes another swing. “Yeah, and you know you’re lucky he doesn’t want you to.” I get the mental image of clean cut captain America reading through some of the offers I’ve taken, let alone the ones I’d turn down. He knew what I was and what I did, but knowing and seeing were two very different things.

“So what did he want?”

“He just asked me to talk with you.” That seemed odd. 

“Huh, nothing else?” Clint shakes his head. “How did he seem when he asked you?”

“Hey that’s your thing. I’m just a humble everyday joe.” That wasn’t a good enough answer and I wanted to press the matter but decide to let it go.

Even though I’d known him so long, I had a difficult time gauging him these last few months. Since he’d left the Avengers, he’d acclimated well. He had his family, he had his house, a normal life. And it may have been wrong to say but that struck me as odd that he could leave it all behind so readily.

I had tried that for about a day after I left, but it didn’t click. Something in me just couldn’t sit idle or more accurately, it wouldn’t let me. With all the free time on my hands I had contacted Isaiah an old acquaintance, and together we had worked out the foundation for my web, and the web needed money. Lots of it. And so now I took on jobs of my choosing, and my screening process was strict. It was my way of coping.

Just then as if to shake me out of my introspection, my phone begins to ring. I pick it up and see Isaiah’s number. “I gotta take this. Hello?”

“The funds transferred an hour ago. SHIELD give you any trouble?”

“Not as much as they could have.” I answer.

“Good. I’m looking into another contract. It meets your criteria.”

I look over to Clint whose eyeing me intently. “How soon?”

“Now if you’re ready.” It was always now with him.

“Alright. On my way.” I hang up and get to my feet. “Sorry but I have to run.”

“Already? Damn you take retirement seriously.” He says getting up himself.

I shoot him a smile. “Think of it more like an extreme hobby.”

\---

DC’s weather was not so perfect as New Yorks. It was pouring rain and occasionally dropping penny sized hail. Luckily for me, this assignment was moslty indoors.

The contract was to recover several classified files from the Hammer and Lynch law firm. According to the contact, they had sealed information on money being funneled into Hydra operations. It had taken Isaiah and I a few hours to set up but everything checked out. The firm had been embroiled in litigation before, and it wouldn’t shock anyone if they were involved in unsavory dealings.

Their security system had been eerily lax. A few minor tweaks to the system which was accessible from public maintenance and their alarm system was down. After that it was a quick jump through a window and I was in.

The Intel said that the files would be in the office of the titular Lynch, and that his office was on the third floor. I make my way there without incident and am surprised to find that the door labeled Lynch was not only unlocked, but cracked open.

Instinct kicks in and I survey my surroundings. It was a large firm but there was no manned security. Any motion sensors were dropped out as were the cameras. The place was silent as a grave. Everything had checked out, so what was more likely Natasha? I wasn’t the only one here or the man simply forgot to close his door all the way?

Airing on the side of caution, I withdraw a suppressed pistol from my waist. Better to be prepared for the unlikely I thought.

With a gentle push, the door nudges open, and sure enough it was empty. Nothing even looked so much as disturbed, and to the left corner of the room stood three ancient looking file cabinets as advertised.

I approach, and use a pair of night vision goggles to flip through their contents. It’s tedious work but eventually I find the dated folders the contact had named. A quick flip through them reveals that the Intel was good. Half of the firms money was tied up with Hydra pseudonyms and they had even acted as counselors for several high ranking Hydra leaders. This was something SHIELD could find useful.

I stow the folder under my arm before closing the cabinet. A step towards the door is as far as I get because exiting I can’t help but notice something. On Lynch’s desk was a dark spot, and upon a closer examination it was obviously blood. It looked old, nearly a day old which was concerning. My grip on the pistol becomes that much tighter as once more I survey the room. It was still very much empty, but there were more flicks of blood.

They created a trial, leading into the opposite corner of the cabinets. Standing there was a large closet for coats and such, and the handle was caked in the same dark stain. I know what’s inside before I open it. 

When I do, a large silhouette comes crashing out onto the floor and is still. I roll it over with my foot so the body is right side up, and I recognize the face as that of the owner of this office. Lynch, with a dark hole right between his eyes. I let out a groan. This Natasha, was a setup.

I set the folder down and take quick scans of the contents before sliding it back into the cabinet in its rightful place. After that I’m out of that building and back onto the street in a minute flat, and none of it feels right.

There was the obvious setup, but why wasn’t there anyone there to take advantage of that? No nameless goons, no police sirens barreling towards me. If this was a setup, than it wasn’t a very good one.

I hold off on calling Isaiah up and letting him know the situation. To much was in flux right now and I couldn’t be trusted not to be overhead by whoever it was orchestrating this. That said I still move to vacate the area as quickly as possible.

As I walk alone in that rain, I can’t help but think. I had set up several scenes like that as a KGB operative, and they had all been more professional than that. If it was a setup for me it was doubly lazy because that wasn’t even my method for taking out targets. What on earth was going on?

I’m left to ponder this as I make for the nearest bus stop. When I get to the enclosed roofed bench, I find I’m not the only one there. An elderly woman is sitting on the bench already. I make note of it but don’t pay it much mind as my head is on a subtle swivel. Casually glancing this way and that.

I wasn’t followed, and if there was any tech that had been connected to me in the firm I would have known. Were modern spies so sloppy? 

A few minutes pass, and soon the bus rounds the corner. The woman begins a feeble attempt to get to her feet, so I move to assist her, offering support for her arm. 

“Thank you young lady.” She smiles. The bus continues to approach as we both move next to the sign in wait. “Awful day isn’t it?”

I cast an eye to the overcast sky. “It certainly is.” I reply. The woman begins to reach into her purse as I take another look at the bus. It was empty save the driver, but it was late and people were probably just avoiding the weather.

The bus’s breaks began to emit a high pitched shriek as it attempted to slide to a halt in front of us. The noise was enough that it very nearly drowned out the woman’s voice.

“убийца” and with that, four loud bangs echo through the street.

My body goes numb. I look down to see three rapidly growing circlets of crimson growing across my stomach. Looking up, the woman is already halfway up the stairs of the bus, which begins driving off a second later.

All the air from my lungs fade from my mouth as a feeble gasp as I try to shout, to call for help, but there was nothing. My fingers fumble at the bullet wounds as I try to apply pressure, but they were clean shots that passed through my stomach, intestines and left lung. 

My legs give out as I collapse to wet pavement. I knew what to do, what should be done, but they were good shots. Damaging ones. It sounded like there was shouting. Somebody had seem me, but everything had begun to blur and I couldn’t register what they were saying or where it was even coming from.

All I could do was stare up into the sky as the rain continues to fall and starts to mix with my blood.


	2. The Setup

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Nat is operated on, several grizzly murders are brought to light and all of them look like Widow kills. The Government demands action be taken to confine her, and the Avengers can't interfere. Not officially anyway.

When I rush through the door, I find a crowd in the observation room. Wanda and Sam are sitting at the back watching from a distance. Maria and Tony had both been in the hall trying to deal with the fallout while trying to keep their shouting to a dull roar. Steve was standing with Isaiah inches away from the glass overlooking the doctors, and the both of them are blocking my view.

I move up, Rogers giving me a nod and steps to the side. There she was. Breathing through a machine, four different scrubbed doctors hands in her stomach and blood everywhere.

Natasha and I had known each other for a long time, and in our line of work injuries and bullet wounds were routine, but I’d never seen her like this. Never thought it was possible someone would so easily get the drop on her.

“What happened?” I breathe, not looking away from the operation.

“We don’t know.” Says Rogers. “An ambulance responded to a call about an injured woman. We didn’t even know it was her until the police reported that she was armed.”

I nod and direct my question at Isaiah. “What did you have her on?” My tone isn’t quite accusatory, but my meaning was clear.

“It was for Intel.” He replies coldly. “And the last time she checked in with me, everything was on track.”

“That’s it?” I breathe. “That’s all we got? No cameras no witnesses?” What was I asking? Of course there wasn’t. That’s not how the game is played.

“At the moment, we have our hands full.” Rogers Answers. It wasn’t hard to see why. Between the time it took for me to receive the call for what had happened and I had parked in the hospital lot, the newsphere had exploded. In the past twenty four hours, there had been a confirmed twenty assassinations. Bodies of political and military targets had been found from their homes to their offices. Some with smoking holes in the backs of their heads, some with crushed necks and others frothing at the mouth from several different poisons.

And at all of these scenes, something linked back to Natasha. Four of the bodies were the board that oversaw the congressional hearing where she had testified on behalf of SHIELD after Hydra reemerged. There were two colonels and a general that had been her commanding officers after she had defected. The rest were former clients, all formerly powerful in their own way, and these were just the targets we knew about.

It had taken the media half an hour to connect the dots. Then they wasted no time in pegging her as the assassin and running think pieces on how this former assassin could have been allowed on the avengers. Talk show’s about how inevitable this was and all before she had even stopped bleeding.

“Obviously this was a setup.” I declare. “Have you ever known her to be sloppy?”

“Nobody’s saying she’s Guilty Barton.” Rogers answers. “But it’ll take time to prove it. And in the meantime whoever tried to kill her might come back to finish the job.”

I look to Natasha, and then up to a hanging x-ray the doctors were consulting. Four shots, all in the abdomen.

“No, if they wanted her dead it would have been easy. Something else is going on here.” But even as I say this, I know it’s nothing the Cap hadn’t thought of. 

“They wanted her alive for this setup.” Confirms Isaiah. “They want her propped up, put into the public eye.”

“For what?” asks Sam apparently listening from the corner. “Cause if you’re right that sounds an awful lot like somebody has a grudge.”

That wouldn’t exactly narrow it down. Natasha had killed a lot of people in her time with the KGB and even more since then. If you wanted a suspect all you had to do was throw a rock and you’d probably hit one with a reason to want her ruined.

“Regardless, it’s safe to say that whoever did this isn’t done. So we’re going to do what we can to find whoever did this and to keep Romanoff out of this as long as possible.” Orders the Cap. The implication does not go unnoticed.

“Out of this?” asks Wanda. “Is she going somewhere?”

“Somebody will demand she’s taken into custody and incarcerated until a trial.” I explain. “And you can’t afford to have any conflict with the government right now.” They’d already had enough of that as was. Now this would strain the relationship even more. Rogers had no choice. 

He nods, looking back at the doctors who were just about finished. “For now, all we can do is set a detail of guards we can trust on her.” To keep her safe he means, and to keep her in check.

I have to contain a scoff. When Natasha Romanoff wakes up and finds out that not only was she shot, but she was being setup for the biggest string of assassinations in decades, she wasn’t going to just sit back and wait for it all to sort out.

Steve sees my expression and understands immediately, rubbing his temple in frustration. “A very large detail of guards.”

\---

A harsh methodic beeping is the first thing I become aware of. The second was the smell of disinfectant, the tang of which was overpowering and sickening and reminded me of how much I hated hospitals. And the third thing I notice is how much every inch of me ached.

The memory of everything that happened before the blackout begins to stir, and my eyes begin to flicker as a gasp escapes my lips when I try to move.

Pain is shooting up from my stomach with every breath. I run my hand under the hospital gown and trace my finger along four separate patches of cloth. Four shots. One through the stomach. One through my spleen. One grazed my vertebrae and the last just above my belly button. Each clean and exiting out the back. Another burst of pain causes me to cry out, and a flash of memory allows a voice from somewhere to whisper gently into my ear, “убийца”

“убийца.” I repeat. Somewhere a door opens and footsteps enter the room. I force my eyes open and adjust to the dim fluorescent light of the hospital room and when they are acclimated, I see Clint hovering over me.

“Hey, finally awake eh?” He’s keeping his tone chipper, but I can see in his face something is wrong and it probably wasn’t the four new holes in my body.

“How long… was I out?” my voice rasps as I try my best to sit up. He moves to help but it’s too late, I’m already up.

“You should probably not…”

“How long?” I demand.

“Three days.” He answers. Three? That wasn’t so bad for the amount of punishment I had received. 

“What happened to the woman?” I ask, eyeing the tubes entering my nose and arm.

Clint looks at me perplexed. “What woman?” of course she was gone before they could find me. My memory seemed distorted but I remembered that at least. And I remembered the word. Killer, in Russian. But it had happened too fast and my memory of it wasn’t perfect. I couldn’t remember the accent if there even was any. I couldn’t even be sure the Russian was because the woman was native or if it was a snide joke before the hit.

But I was alive, and any assassin worth a damn wouldn’t fail to kill a target that was so close. I was alive only because I was meant to be. And with this thought I finally notice the two large, dark silhouettes outside the room’s window on either side of the door.

“What are they doing here?” I ask, pulling the tubes from my nose and gagging as the end of it comes up. Clint watches with a defeated look on his face.

“You don’t waste time I’ll give you that.” He sits at the edge of the bed and his expression turns from put upon defeat to worry. “So you don’t know what was happening?”

I shake my head, lurching a little when an overwhelming sense of nausea rises in my gut.

“Before we found you and ever since there have been a lot of killing. And Nat it looks like you. You and someone else.”

“Killings? Who?” I croak out.

“So far the counts at seventy three. All people you’ve met or at least knew of. The board at SHIELD’s hearing. General Davis. Secretary Holloway and it all links back to you. Guns same as you use, tactics from your book. Everything.” He finishes.

Apparently the setup was better than I thought. The contract I went on was a ruse to lull me in before the real plan went in. But if they were doing this, they didn’t want me dead, at least not yet. When I think back on the things I had done to set someone up, this reeked of it, if on an admittedly larger scale. Take out key targets, plant evidence and watch the real target get burned by their own factions.

Which leads me to once more look out of the window at the guards as well as finally notice that my ankle was handcuffed to the railing of the bed. I was a prisoner awaiting judgment.

“Seventy three?” I repeat. That seemed like a bit much, but then maybe I wasn’t the only angle. I’d need to know who each target was before I could say, and I wasn’t going to bog Clint down with too many questions. “Why am I still here then?”

“Cap argued for you and persuaded them to wait on moving you.” Good old Cap. “But, we don’t know if they’ll stick to that.”

“Well then.” I say taking the IV from my arm and dabbing at the blood that wells up. “I better not hang around.”

Clint stands up, and for a second, it looks like he isn’t going to help me. But he turns and holds out the key for the handcuff. I take it, nodding in thanks and reach down for the keyhole and once again I’m laid out by the pain. Three days wasn’t enough to make this easily manageable, but I could do it.

Clint though takes the key back and starts unlocking it himself. “There are two outside the door. Two over in the coffee lounge. Two by the elevator and at least one on the stairs.” He offers. There’s a click and the metal ring around my ankle falls away.

He then reaches out his hand for me and lifts me up gently. I stagger a little having lost a touch of strength in my legs, plus the pain wasn’t helping and whatever pain medication I was on hadn’t entirely worn off so my head was slightly fuzzy. When I’m steady his hand lifts and two Widow’s Bites are left in mine. “Sorry.” he offers. “That’s all I could get.”

“It’ll be enough.” I start making a plan when I see that he is holding one himself. “What’s that for?”

“Me.” He responds with a cheeky smile. “I can’t just let you walk out of here.”

“They’ll ask how I got them.” I reply.

He waves his hand. “I’ll just say you’re a spy. They’ll figure you hid em in your teeth or something crazy like that.”

I can’t help but smile at his willingness to help me. To trust me. He wraps an arm around me but gently so nothing is damaged. “Be careful. This is as much help as I can give you.”

“Thank you.” I reply. We part and he nods encouragement one last time before activating the Bite on himself. His limbs go rigid, eyes rolling back and he’s down.

He makes enough noise that there’s no time to wait. The handle on the door begins to jiggle and I stand flat against the wall, ready and willing.

The door opens, and luckily the first man I see already has his tazer out. We make eye contact for the briefest of seconds before the bite is on him and he goes down. As he falls, the tazer drops from his grip into my waiting hands. I round the barrel on the second guard and he’s down too.

I do a combination of limping and sprinting from the room and look down the hallway to see the two guards from the elevator already sprinting down the hall to meet me. I begin running in the opposite direction towards the sign that said EXIT.

They’re gaining on me but I have a decent enough head start, and a plan that rested entirely on one contingent. I burst through the exit door and am lucky enough that the stair guard is three stories below. He looks up at me and starts taking the stairs up two at a time and I start down one at a time, throbbing with pain every time my feet hit a new step. 

I’m not even a floor down before the door behind me bursts open once more and the two guards continue the chase. Luckily for me however, that one contingent turned out true. The railing that wound its way down the stairs was made of metal. I smack the bite onto it and activate it. There’s a hissing sound, and I hear two crashes behind me. When I look I find both had had their hands on the railing at the time.

There’s another thump from below. I look to see the tail end of the guard cascading down his flight of stairs head over heels. Bad luck there. I continue down for another flight of stairs when I hear the echo of another door being burst open. These were probably the coffee guys. I keep running but two more thumps echo down the stairwell. The bite was still activated after all. So if Clint’s count was accurate, I was in the clear.

But it never did to assume, and as I hit the first floor platform, the door swings open just as I outstretch my hand for it. The guard looks at me with shock and alarm and raises his tazer to meet me, but I’m faster even in pain and smack it from his hands. It comes to rest in the corner and I lunge for it, but a hand wraps itself around my arm and pulls me into to a bear clutch.

He squeezes tightly and the pain in my stomach is almost becoming unbearable and my vision begins to blur. I wasn’t going to break free I knew, so I had to work with it. And so I start kicking at the floor and slam to the two of us against the wall. This is enough for his stance to go weak momentarily, and I take advantage of it in an instant, jumping up and at the height of the ascent, grabbing onto his arms in return and jerking myself forward throwing my entire bodyweight into the roll.

I fall to the ground unable to land right and the man is hurled over me like a ragdoll and hits the railing head first. I don’t hear a crack, but the combination of the head smack and electro shock probably would keep him down for awhile. 

I let out a sigh and a groan hoping that was the last of them. Something wet and warm is growing across my hospital gown and I know I’ve torn the bullet wounds open. By the feeling of it I had torn all of them.

It takes me a few minutes, but I finally rise up to my shaky feet holding onto the wall for support. I was tired, in pain and that sick feeling in my stomach had only grown, but I wasn’t going to let myself fall into government custody.

I press the door open and find myself in another hallway, this one being a dead end that led to several patients rooms. No alarms were sounding so I guessed that the Guards didn’t want to make a fuss about an escaped assassin. That was probably Rogers but who knew.

I try to keep my head down as best I can to an extent, but as I pass by a supply room, a passing nurse notices me as well as the red stain on my shirt.

“Ma’am. Ma’am are you hurt?” she asks. I nod, slumping against the supply door. When she approaches I take a quick look up and down the hall. One orderly but she was looking away. There wasn’t going to be a chance. The nurse puts on arm on my shoulder to start to sit me down. She looks genuinely terrified when I grab her shoulders and throw the pair of us into the empty supply room.

She tries to scramble to her feet but my arms are already around her neck. She struggles and thrashes but I keep a hand over her mouth to keep the noise from growing too loud. And soon her kicks grow weak, her eyes fall closed and her body slackens its tension as I let her collapse to the ground.

Her chest still rose and fell with regularity so I know I haven’t hurt her too bad. I begin the process of undressing her as I take of my own blood soaked clothes. A quick look around the room shows nothing I can use to restitch the wounds, but I do find a sheet that I wrap around my stomach tightly to halt the bleeding as much as possible. I then put on the nurses clothes which are a touch too big for me, but the sheet made that look normal plus had the benefit of keeping my blood from soaking through the scrubs.

My knees were seriously in danger of giving out when I stand up this time, and when I do I’m eye level with a small mirror. I had looked worse but usually only after a full on beating. My skin was pail and clammy. My hair was a mess and slick with sweat, and there were two very large black bags under my eyes. This wasn’t immediately bad however as it would make me harder to recognize. Still I find a doctors hat and surgical mask to cover up how obviously unwell I was and decided this was the best I could do for now.

I check the nametag on the scrubs. Taylor. Sorry miss Taylor I think, and as I leave the supply room I leave the door open so that she’ll hopefully be found soon. From there I make my way to the closest door without hindrance. If they were serious they should have put men on every exit.

The sun is much worse than the hospital lighting, but the smell and breeze is a nice change. I find a nice boring silver car and use a scalpel I grabbed from the supply room to pry the lock and slid into the passenger seat. When I reach up to adjust the mirrors, I notice a small red line on my wrist that was new.

Taking a closer look I realize what it was. I take the hat off and withdraw the scalpel once more and slice a thin section of skin over the former cut. It’s big enough that I can reach in with the scalpel and press out the trackers with ease. The thing is no bigger than the tip of a ballpoint pen. Taking it between two fingers, I throw it from the window and start the car, taking special care to drive over the little bug on my way out. If they were going to track me, they’d have to try harder than that.

\---

“You’re really surprised?” I ask holding an ice bag to my forehead. My head had smacked something on the way down.

“I’m just saying the timing is weird.” Replies Sam. He had been sitting with me as the guards told their stories of what happened. Rogers had been talking to them personally for the last half hour. “Think we’ll catch her?”

“Nope. Unless she wants us to.” I say truthfully.

Rogers nods to the guards, all with similar ice bags to mine. They leave and Rogers moves back to us, eyes on me the whole time. “It seems,” he breathes almost as a sigh. “That one of the guards misplaced his key.”

“Wow. Didn’t think that she was that good.” I say in obvious mock admiration.

Rogers looks down at the ground and is very noticeably trying to stifle a laugh as he walks away. Sam just looks from me then to Rogers and slumps down in his chair. “C’mon man. You could at least tell me what’s going on once in a while.”

We both stand up following Rogers to the elevator. “So what do we do now?” asks Sam. “Is this the part where she goes off the grid or something?”

“Give it a few days.” Answers Rodgers. “My bet is soon she’s going start leaving us a trail to follow.”

**Author's Note:**

> The universe as best I can describe it is a hybrid of the comic 616 universe as well as the MCU.


End file.
